1.
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
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The House of Commons of the United Kingdom is the lower house of the countrys parliament. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster, officially, the full name of the house is, The Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The House is a body consisting of 650 members known as Members of Parliament. Members are elected to represent constituencies by first-past-the-post and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved, under the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The Government is primarily responsible to the House of Commons and the prime minister stays in office only as long as he or she retains the support of a majority of its members. Although it does not formally elect the prime minister, the position of the parties in the House of Commons is of overriding importance, by convention, the prime minister is answerable to, and must maintain the support of, the House of Commons. Since 1963, by convention, the minister is always a member of the House of Commons. The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the Government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence, confidence and no confidence motions are sometimes phrased explicitly, for instance, That this House has no confidence in Her Majestys Government. Many other motions were considered confidence issues, even though not explicitly phrased as such, in particular, important bills that form a part of the Governments agenda were formerly considered matters of confidence, as is the annual Budget. Parliament normally sits for a term of five years. Subject to that limit, the minister could formerly choose the timing of the dissolution of parliament. By this second mechanism, the government of the United Kingdom can change without a general election. In such circumstances there may not even have been a party leadership election, as the new leader may be chosen by acclaim. A prime minister may resign if he or she is not defeated at the polls. In such a case, the premiership goes to whoever can command a majority in the House of Commons, in practice this is usually the new leader of the outgoing prime ministers party. Until 1965, the Conservative Party had no mechanism for electing a new leader, when Anthony Eden resigned as PM in 1957 without recommending a successor and it fell to the Queen to appoint Harold Macmillan as the new prime minister, after taking the advice of ministers. By convention, all ministers must be members of the House of Commons or of the House of Lords, a handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they then entered Parliament either in a by-election or by receiving a peerage. Since 1902, all ministers have been members of the Commons
2.
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK)
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The Deputy Leader of the Labour Party is a senior politician in the British Labour Party. The post is held by Tom Watson, who was elected as deputy on 12 September 2015. Unlike other political party leaders, the Labour leader does not have the power to appoint or dismiss his or her deputy, the post is instead elected using the partys electoral college system, it was elected by Labour MPs before 1981. Recently, the office of Deputy Prime Minister has been revived, the previous Labour deputy leader, John Prescott, held this post from 1997 to 2007. However, the deputy leader is essentially a party official and there is no link between the two roles. The former Labour British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced on his election as Labour leader that the newly elected deputy leader, Harriet Harman. Brown subsequently appointed her Leader of the House of Commons in his first cabinet, in the event of a vacancy in the office of leader when the Labour Party is in opposition, the deputy leader automatically becomes temporary leader of the Party until a new leader is elected. To date, the only Deputy Leaders who have gone on to become the leader of the Labour Party are Clement Attlee. Margaret Beckett briefly served as Labour leader following the death of John Smith in 1994. Harriet Harman was leader after Gordon Brown resigned in 2010 and after Ed Miliband resigned in 2015, conversely, John Robert Clynes served as leader prior to becoming Deputy Leader
3.
Hugh Gaitskell
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Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell, CBE, PC was a politician and Leader of the British Labour Party. With Labour in opposition from 1951, Gaitskell won bitter leadership battles with Bevan and his supporters to become the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition in 1955. He opposed British military action at Suez in 1956, but against a backdrop of a booming economy led the Labour Party to another defeat in 1959. His revisionist views on the right of Labour were sometimes called Gaitskellism and he was loved and hated for his confrontational leadership and brutal frankness. He died suddenly in 1963, when he appeared to be on the verge of leading Labour back to power and he was known as “Sam” as a child. The Gaitskells had a family connection with the Indian Army. After his fathers death his mother remarried and returned to Burma. Gaitskell was educated at the Dragon School from 1912 to 1919 and he then attended Winchester College from 1919 to 1924. He attended New College, Oxford, from 1924 to 1927, studying under G. D. H. Cole, Gaitskell became a socialist and wrote a long essay on Chartism, arguing that the working class needed middle-class leadership. Gaitskells first political involvement came about as a result of the General Strike of 1926, most students supported the government and many volunteered for civil defence duties, or helped to run essential services. After the collapse of the General Strike, Gaitskell spent another six months raising funds for the miners and he graduated with a first class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1927. In 1927-28 Gaitskell lectured in economics for the Workers Educational Association to miners in Nottinghamshire and his essay on Chartism was published as a WEA booklet in 1928. This was his first experience of interaction with the working class, Gaitskell helped to run the New Fabian Research Bureau, set up by G. D. H. Cole in March 1931. He was selected as Labour candidate for Chatham in autumn 1932, Gaitskell moved to University College London in the early 1930s at the invitation of Noel Hall. In 1934 he joined the XYZ Club, a club for Labour financial experts, Dalton and Gaitskell were often referred to as “Big Hugh and Little Hugh” over the next fifteen years. In 1934 Gaitskell was in Vienna on a Rockefeller scholarship and this event made a lasting impression, making him profoundly hostile to conservatism but also making him reject as futile the Marxian outlook of many European social democrats. This placed him in the socialist revisionist camp, in the 1935 General Election, he stood unsuccessfully for election at Chatham. Gaitskell helped to draft “Labour’s Immediate Programme” in 1937 and this had a strong emphasis on planning, although not as much as his mentor Dalton would have liked, with no plans for the nationalisation of banks or the steel industry
4.
Jim Griffiths
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James Griffiths CH PC was a Welsh Labour politician, trade union leader and the first ever Secretary of State for Wales. He was born in the strongly Welsh-speaking village of Betws, near Ammanford in Carmarthenshire, the youngest of ten children his father was the local blacksmith. His brother was a notable Welsh poet who took the name of Amanwy after his native valley. Educated at Betws Board School, he left at the age of 13 to work at Ammanford No.1 colliery, Griffiths was a pacifist and while campaigning against the Great War met Winifred Rutley, whom he married in 1918. He continued his education by attending school and became an active socialist. He helped establish a branch of the Independent Labour Party in Ammanford in 1908 and he went on to occupy the powerful post of secretary of the newly formed Ammanford Trades Council between 1916–1919. In 1936, he was elected Labour Member of Parliament for the seat of Llanelli. Three years later he continued his rise through the Labour movement by getting elected to Labours National Executive Committee in 1939, following Labours victory at the 1945 general election, he was made a Privy Counsellor and Minister for National Insurance by Prime Minister Clement Attlee. In this role he was responsible for creating the modern state benefit system and he introduced the Family Allowances Act 1945, a new Industrial Injuries Act, and the National Insurance Act 1948. Along with Aneurin Bevan he was one of the architects of the Welfare State. He became Chairman of the Labour Party between 1948–1949, and in 1950 he became Secretary of State for the Colonies, within two years however the Labour Party was out of office. During the long period in opposition he was deputy leader of the Labour Party, 1955–1959 and he used his relationship with Hugh Gaitskell to commit the Labour Party to a measure of devolution. This was said to sum up the mood of many at the time and he established the Welsh Office and laid the foundations for the role until the 1966 general election when he returned to the backbenches. He was appointed a Companion of Honour, though by now suffering from ill-health he avoided standing down because he feared Labour would lose a by-election in Llanelli. He remained in Parliament until 1970 and was succeeded by Denzil Davies and he published his autobiography, Pages From Memory, the same year. He died in Teddington, Greater London, aged 84, leaving two sons and two daughters and he is buried at the Christian Temple chapel in Ammanford. In a memorial address Jim Callaghan described him as one of the greatest sons of Wales and we honour the memory of Jim Griffiths of Ammanford. I mention his birth place because, despite all his honours and journeyings, it was the place of his birth, deep in the heart of Wales, that essentially shaped his life and actions
5.
George Brown, Baron George-Brown
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He was a leader of the Labour Partys trade union right wing, and an effective election campaigner. Ultimately, however, he was unable to cope with the pressures of office without excessive drinking. Soon after the birth, his left and moved to the Peabody Trust block at Peabody Square, Blackfriars Road, Southwark. His father, also called George Brown, had worked as a packer, lorry driver. Brown had already adopted his parents left-wing views and later claimed to have delivered leaflets for the Labour Party in the 1922 general election when he was 8 years old. The school wanted Brown to stay on beyond the age of 15 and he started work as a junior clerk in the ledger department of a City firm, but was made redundant after pressing his fellow clerks to join a trade union. From 1932, he worked as a fur salesman for the John Lewis Partnership, Brown earned a great deal on commission. During this time, Brown continued his education through London County Council evening schools, the poverty of his upbringing led Brown in later life to resent those who had a more privileged background and a university education. By now Brown was active within the Labour Party and the Labour League of Youth and he ran as a moderate candidate for the Chairmanship but at the Labour Party conference in 1937 he was defeated by Ted Willis, a left-wing candidate later known as a television scriptwriter. At the 1939 Labour Party conference Brown made his mark by a speech demanding the expulsion of Stafford Cripps for his advocacy of a Popular Front. For the rest of his life, Cripps refused to speak to Brown, after the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Brown volunteered for the RAF but Ernest Bevin, the minister of labour, kept Brown and other trade union officials in their civilian jobs. Bevin was one of the Labour leaders brought into the coalition government. Brown himself served as a civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture from 1940 onwards. As a TGWU official, Brown was a candidate to Labour constituencies seeking a candidate, as the TGWU would sponsor him. He was selected for Belper, a mixed constituency near Derby which was one of the top Labour target seats, in the 1945 general election Brown won the seat with a majority of nearly 9,000. He was invited as one of a dozen Young Victors to a dinner given by Hugh Dalton on 30 July 1945 who was talent-spotting and networking. Brown was immediately chosen to be a Parliamentary Private Secretary by George Isaacs, who had followed the promoted Bevin as Minister of Labour, Brown was both adept at understanding political issues and how to communicate them, and convivial and generally popular within the Parliamentary Labour Party. Brown launched a plot to have Clement Attlee replaced as Prime Minister by Ernest Bevin
6.
Denis Healey
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He was a Member of Parliament for 40 years and was the last surviving member of the cabinet formed by Harold Wilson after the Labour Partys victory in the 1964 general election. A major figure in the party, he was defeated in bids for the party leadership. To the public at large, Healey became well known for his bushy eyebrows, Denis Winston Healey was born in Mottingham, Kent, but moved with his family to Keighley in the West Riding of Yorkshire when he was aged five. His parents were Winifred Mary and William Healey and his middle name was in honour of Winston Churchill. Healey was one of two siblings and his father was an engineer who worked his way up from humble origins, studying at night school and eventually becoming head of a trade school. His paternal grandfather was a tailor from Enniskillen in Northern Ireland, early Healey was educated at Bradford Grammar School. In 1936, he won a scholarship to Balliol College. He there became involved in Labour politics, although he was not active in the Oxford Union Society, also while at Oxford, Healey joined the Communist Party in 1937 during the Great Purge, but left in 1940 after the Fall of France. At Oxford, Healey met future Prime Minister Edward Heath, whom he succeeded as president of Balliol College Junior Common Room, Healey achieved a double first degree, awarded in 1940. After graduation, Healey served in the Second World War as a gunner in the Royal Artillery but was commissioned as a lieutenant in April 1941. He was made an MBE in 1945 and he left the service with the rank of major. He became secretary of the department of the Labour Party, becoming a foreign policy adviser to Labour leaders. He was an opponent of the Communist Party at home. From 1948 to 1960 he was a councillor for the Royal Institute of International Affairs and he was a member of the Fabian Society executive from 1954 until 1961. Healey met Hans von Herwarth, the ex soldier Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin, the conference also included other leading British decisionmakers like Richard Crossman and the journalist Robin Day. Healey was elected to the House of Commons as MP for Leeds South East at a by-election in February 1952, following constituency boundary changes, he was elected for Leeds East at the 1955 general election, holding that seat until he retired as an MP in 1992. He was a moderate on the right during the series of splits in the Labour Party in the 1950s and he was a supporter and friend of Hugh Gaitskell. He persuaded Gaitskell to temper his support for British military action in 1956 when the Suez Canal was seized by the Nasser regime in Egypt
7.
George VI
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George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death. He was the last Emperor of India and the first Head of the Commonwealth, known as Albert until his accession, George VI was born in the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, and was named after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort. As the second son of King George V, he was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his life in the shadow of his elder brother. He attended naval college as a teenager, and served in the Royal Navy, in 1920, he was made Duke of York. He married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 and they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, in the mid-1920s, he had speech therapy for a stammer, which he never fully overcame. Georges elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII upon the death of their father in 1936, however, later that year Edward revealed his desire to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin advised Edward that for political and religious reasons he could not marry a divorced woman, Edward abdicated in order to marry, and George ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor. During Georges reign, the break-up of the British Empire and its transition into the Commonwealth of Nations accelerated, the parliament of the Irish Free State removed direct mention of the monarch from the countrys constitution on the day of his accession. The following year, a new Irish constitution changed the name of the state to Ireland, from 1939, the Empire and Commonwealth – except Ireland – was at war with Nazi Germany. War with Italy and Japan followed in 1940 and 1941, respectively, though Britain and its allies were ultimately victorious in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union rose as pre-eminent world powers and the British Empire declined. After the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, George remained king of countries, but relinquished the title of Emperor of India in June 1948. Ireland formally declared itself a republic and left the Commonwealth in 1949, George adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth. He was beset by problems in the later years of his reign. He was succeeded by his eldest daughter, Elizabeth II, George was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria. His father was Prince George, Duke of York, the second and eldest-surviving son of the Prince and his mother was the Duchess of York, the eldest child and only daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Teck. His birthday was the 34th anniversary of the death of his great-grandfather, Albert, uncertain of how the Prince Consorts widow, Queen Victoria, would take the news of the birth, the Prince of Wales wrote to the Duke of York that the Queen had been rather distressed. Two days later, he again, I really think it would gratify her if you yourself proposed the name Albert to her. Consequently, he was baptised Albert Frederick Arthur George at St. Mary Magdalenes Church near Sandringham three months later, within the family, he was known informally as Bertie
8.
Clement Attlee
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Attlee was the first person to hold the office of Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, serving under Winston Churchill in the wartime coalition government. He went on to lead the Labour Party to an election victory in summer 1945. One of only a handful of Labour frontbenchers to retain his seat in the defeat of 1931. In 1935 he became the Leader of the Party, at first advocating pacificism and appeasement, he later reversed his position and by 1938 became a strong critic of Neville Chamberlains attempts to appease Adolf Hitler. He took Labour into the Churchill war ministry in 1940, initially serving as Lord Privy Seal, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in 1942. With victory in Europe in May 1945, the government was dissolved. Attlee led Labour to win a majority in the ensuing 1945 general election two months later. Within this context, his government undertook the nationalisation of public utilities and major industries, Attlee himself had little interest in economic matters but this settlement was broadly accepted by all parties for three decades. Foreign policy was the domain of Ernest Bevin, but Attlee took special interest in India. He supervised the process by which India was partitioned into India and he also arranged the independence of Burma, and Ceylon. His government ended the British Mandates of Palestine and Jordan, from 1947 he and Bevin pushed the United States to take a more vigorous role in the emerging Cold War against Soviet Communism. When the budgetary crisis forced Britain out of Greece in 1947 he called on Washington to counter the Communists with the Truman Doctrine and he avidly supported the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe with American money. In 1949, he promoted the NATO military alliance against the Soviet bloc and he sent British troops to fight in the Malayan Emergency in 1948 and sent the RAF to participate in the Berlin Airlift. He commissioned an independent nuclear deterrent for the UK and he used 13,000 troops and passed special legislation to promptly end the London dock strike in 1949. After leading Labour to a victory in the 1950 general election. Attlee was narrowly defeated by the Conservatives under Churchill in the 1951 general election and he continued as Labour leader but had lost his effectiveness by then. He retired after losing the 1955 general election and was elevated to the House of Lords, in public, Attlee was modest and unassuming, he was ineffective at public relations and lacked charisma. His strengths emerged behind the scenes, especially in committees where his depth of knowledge, quiet demeanour, objectivity and he saw himself as spokesman on behalf of his entire party and successfully kept its multiple factions in harness
9.
Secretary of State for Health
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Her Majestys Principal Secretary of State for Health is a UK cabinet position responsible for the NHS. Health services in Northern Ireland have always had separate arrangements from the rest of the UK, the first Boards of Health were created by Orders in Council dated 21 June 14 November, and 21 November 1831. In 1848, a General Board of Health was created with the First Commissioner of Woods, in 1854, this Board was reconstituted and the President appointed separately. However, the Board was abolished in 1858 and its function of overseeing the local boards was transferred to a new Local Government Act Office within the Home Office, from 1871, that function was transferred to the new Local Government Board. The Ministry of Health was created in 1919 as a reconstruction of the Local Government Board, Local government functions were eventually transferred to the Minister of Housing and Local Government, leaving the Health Ministry in charge of Health proper. From 1968, it was amalgamated with the Ministry of Social Security under the Secretary of State for Social Services, until a de-merger of the Department of Health, jeremy Hunt remained in post after Theresa May became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Colour key, Whig Conservative Radical Peelite Liberal Labour Unionist National Labour National Liberal
10.
Michael Foot
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Michael Mackintosh Foot PC FRSL was a British Labour Party politician and man of letters. Foot began his career as a journalist, becoming editor of Tribune on several occasions, and he co-wrote the classic polemic against appeasement of Hitler, Guilty Men, under a pseudonym. Foot became a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1955 and served again from 1960 until 1992 and he was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Employment under Harold Wilson in 1974, and he later served as Leader of the House of Commons under James Callaghan. He was also Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under Callaghan from 1976 to 1980, Foot was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983. His strongly left-wing political positions and criticisms of vacillating leadership made him an unpopular leader, not particularly telegenic, he was also nicknamed Worzel Gummidge for his rumpled appearance. A right-wing faction of the party broke away to form the Social Democratic Party, among the books he authored are Guilty Men, a biography of Jonathan Swift and a biography of Aneurin Bevan. Foot was born in Lipson Terrace, Plymouth, Devon, the fifth of seven children of Isaac Foot and Eva, Isaac Foot was a solicitor and founder of the Plymouth law firm Foot and Bowden. Isaac Foot was an member of the Liberal Party and was Liberal Member of Parliament for Bodmin in Cornwall from 1922–24 and again from 1929–35. He was the uncle of campaigning journalist Paul Foot and charity worker Oliver Foot, Foot was educated at Plymouth College Preparatory School, Forres School in Swanage, and Leighton Park School in Reading. When he left Forres School, the headmaster sent a letter to his father in which he said “he has been the boy in the school in every way”. He then went on to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Wadham College, Foot was the President of the Oxford Union. He also took part in the ESU USA Tour, on graduating with a second-class degree in 1934, he took a job as a shipping clerk in Birkenhead. Foot was profoundly influenced by the poverty and unemployment that he witnessed in Liverpool, a Liberal up to this time, Foot was converted to socialism by Oxford University Labour Club president David Lewis, a Canadian Rhodes scholar, and others. I knew him when I was a Liberal played a part in converting me to socialism, Foot joined the Labour Party and first stood for parliament at the age of 22 in the 1935 general election, when he contested Monmouth. During this election Foot criticised the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, in his election address Foot contended that the armaments race in Europe must be stopped now. Foot also supported unilateral disarmament, after multilateral disarmament talks at Geneva had broken down in 1933, the campaigns members were Stafford Crippss Socialist League, the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain. In a 1955 interview, Foot ideologically identified as a libertarian socialist, on the recommendation of Aneurin Bevan, Foot was soon hired by Lord Beaverbrook to work as a writer on his Evening Standard. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Foot volunteered for military service and it was suggested in 2011 that he became a member of the secret Auxiliary Units
11.
Tredegar
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Tredegar is a town and community situated on the Sirhowy River in the county borough of Blaenau Gwent, in southeast Wales. Located within the boundaries of Monmouthshire, it became an early centre of the Industrial Revolution in South Wales. The historic Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, United States was named in honour of the town, deg erw is Welsh for ten acres, tre in newer place names in the industrialised valleys means town, and equates to English names with town or ville. Historically tref / tre was approximately a homestead, farmstead, hamlet, in this respect we can compare the sense development of Old English tūn to modern English town. So tre deg erw is plausible morphologically, but is not the origin of the name Tredegar, another erroneous explanation, which was also around in the 1800s, is that Tredegar is tri deg erw, which means thirty acres. In the case of ten acres and thirty acres there is no indication of what this land area might refer to. In the second case, tri deg erw could not have resulted in Tredegar, in both of the above interpretations it is supposed that erw has been reduced to er through the loss of the final vowel w, and the resulting final syllable er has become final ar. This would be consistent with features of south-eastern Welsh, or Gwentian, south-eastern field names show this reduction – Dwyar, a field name in Penderyn. The resulting form would be Tredegar, but this supposes that this is a form of tri-deg-ar. Tri-deg is thirty, but as a numeral is a recent innovation in Welsh, in addition, tri-deg would hardly change to tre-deg. The company’s buildings appeared on an 1832 Ordnance Survey map as Tredegar Iron Works, the Tredegar in the name of the company and its ironworks referred to the original Tredegar, which is in Coedcernyw by Newport, and is nowadays more usually known in English as Tredegar House. Older forms of the show it to be Tredegyr. Tredegyr is farmstead of Tegyr + soft mutation + Tegyr, a Brythonic form *Tecorix might be supposed, as such a form would have resulted in Welsh Tegyr following normal processes in the development of Welsh from Brythonic. There is a name in Denbighshire – Botegyr, meaning Tegyr’s dwelling. The local form of the name was in fact Tredecar and this feature, typical of south-eastern Welsh, or Gwentian, is known as “provection” and involves the devoicing of stops. In this way “b > p”, “d > t” and “g > c”, the form is to be found in the title of the folk song “Ar Ben Waun Tredecar” by the group Yr Hwntws. There was also a shortened form Decar – the loss of a syllable is not unusual in Welsh. Examples in spoken Welsh are ceffyle > ffyle, afale > fale, ysgubor > sgubor, ystafell > stafell, the first recorded iron works in the Sirhowy Valley was Pont Gwaith Yr Hearn, developed by two Bretons and worked by men from Penydarren, Merthyr Tydfil
12.
Chesham
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Chesham is a market town in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire, England. It is located 11 miles south-east of the county town of Aylesbury, Chesham is also a civil parish designated a town council within Chiltern district. It is situated in the Chess Valley and surrounded by farmland, the town is known for its four Bs, usually quoted as, - boots, beer, brushes and Baptists. Cheshams prosperity grew significantly during the 18th and 19th centuries with the development of manufacturing industry, in the face of fierce competition from both home and abroad all these traditional industries rapidly declined. The ready availability of skilled labour encouraged new industries to the town both before and after the end of the Second World War, today employment in the town is provided mainly by small businesses engaged in light industry, technology and professional services. From the early part of the 20th century onwards there has been an expansion of the town with new housing developments. Increasingly Chesham has also become a town with improved connection to London via the London Underground. The town centre has been redeveloped since the 1960s and was pedestrianised in the 1990s. The population of the town has increased to slightly over 20,000, There is archaeological evidence of the earliest settlement during the Late Mesolithic period around 5000 BC in East Street, Chesham where a large quantity of Flint tools were found. The earliest farming evidence from the Neolithic era around 2500 BC, Bronze Age tribes settled in the valley around 1800 BC and they were succeeded by Iron Age Belgic people of the Catuvellauni tribe around 500 BC. Between 150–400 AD there is evidence of Romano-British farming and nearby at Latimer there is evidence of a Roman villa. However the area was deserted until the Saxon period around the 7th century. Contrary to popular belief, the town is not named after the river, rather and she held an estate here which she bequeathed to Abingdon Abbey. Prior to 1066 there were three adjacent estates which comprised Caestreham which are recorded in the Domesday Book as being of 1½,4 and 8½ hides. The most important of these manors was held by Queen Edith, other land having been returned to the Crown it was in the hands of Harold Godwinson and his brother Leofwine Godwinson. Part of these later became Chesham Bois parish, after 1066 Edith kept her lands and William the Conqueror divided royal lands between his half brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Hugh de Bolbec. The Domesday Book records that there were three manors in Cestreham and one at nearby Latimer, William the Conqueror shared out the estates between four of his dependants. The vast majority of land was granted to Hugh de Bolebec and smaller parcels to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, Toustain Mantel, before the 13th century the three Cestreham manors were known as Chesham Higham, Chesham Bury and Chesham Boys
13.
Labour Party (UK)
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The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Labour later served in the coalition from 1940 to 1945. Labour was also in government from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan. The Labour Party was last in government from 1997 to 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, beginning with a majority of 179. Having won 232 seats in the 2015 general election, the party is the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the party also organises in Northern Ireland, but does not contest elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Labour Party is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance. In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader of the Labour Party, the first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the Southwark by-election of 1870. In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time, among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. In the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates, Keir Hardie, the leader of the party, believed that to obtain success in parliamentary elections, it would be necessary to join with other left-wing groups. Hardies roots as a lay preacher contributed to an ethos in the party led to the comment by 1950s General Secretary Morgan Phillips that Socialism in Britain owed more to Methodism than Marx. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, the meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations—trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates. This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee, meant to coordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and it had no single leader, and in the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 Khaki election came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively, only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful, Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby. Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, the judgement effectively made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. In their first meeting after the election the groups Members of Parliament decided to adopt the name The Labour Party formally, the Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal Government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement, the Peoples History Museum in Manchester holds the minutes of the first Labour Party meeting in 1906 and has them on display in the Main Galleries. Also within the museum is the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, the governing Liberals were unwilling to repeal this judicial decision with primary legislation
14.
Jennie Lee, Baroness Lee of Asheridge
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Janet Lee, Baroness Lee of Asheridge, PC, known as Jennie Lee, was a Scottish Labour Party politician. She was a Member of Parliament from a by-election in 1929 until 1931 and she was married to the Welsh Labour politician Aneurin Bevan from 1934 until his death in 1960. Born in Lochgelly, in Fife, Scotland, to James Lee, a miner, and Euphemia Grieg, she inherited her fathers socialist inclinations and her grandfather Michael Lee had founded the Fifeshire ILP federation. She later joined the Labour Party, and served as an MP from 1929 to 1931, Lee was educated at Beath High School, she wanted to go to university but her parents were unable to afford the fees. Eventually she went to law and education with support from the Carnegie Trust who agreed to pay half her fees. At university she joined the Labour Club, the Edinburgh University Womens Union, one of her first campaigns was to elect Bertrand Russell as Rector of the university. After graduating with a MA, an LLB and a teaching certificate, immediately she was in conflict with the Labour Partys leadership in the commons. She insisted on being sponsored by Robert Smillie and her old friend James Maxton to be introduced to the Commons, rather than by the leaderships preferred choice of sponsors. Lees first speech was an attack on the proposals of Winston Churchill that met even with his approval. Lee forged a reputation as a left-winger, allying herself to Maxton. In her private life at the time she had formed a relationship with fellow Labour MP Edward Frank Wise, a married man who considered divorcing his wife for Lee. Wise died in 1933 and the following year Lee married the left-wing Welsh Labour MP Aneurin Bevan, nonetheless she practised feminism of a sort and was known to walk out of dinner parties if it was expected that women were to withdraw to another room when the port was circulated. She also remained active inside the ILP and took their side in their split from the Labour Party and she attempted re-election in North Lanarkshire at the 1935 general election, coming second behind Anstruther-Gray but ahead of the Labour Partys candidate. She remained a convinced left-winger, and this brought her sometimes into opposition with even her own husband, Lee was critical of Bevan for his support of the UK acquiring a nuclear deterrent, something she did not support. The Open University was based on the idea of a University of the Air and it was intended as a correspondence university reaching out to those who had been denied the opportunity to study. Lee produced a White Paper in 1966 outlining university plans, which would deliver courses by correspondence, prime minister Harold Wilson was an enthusiastic supporter because he envisioned The Open University as a major marker in the Labour Partys commitment to modernising British society. He believed that it would build a more competitive economy while also promoting greater equality of opportunity. By the time the actual, much higher costs became apparent, applications opened in 1970 and the first students began their studies in 1971
15.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
16.
Welsh people
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The Welsh people or the Welsh are a nation and ethnic group native to, or otherwise associated with, Wales and the Welsh language. Prior to the 20th century, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh, the term Welsh people applies to people from Wales and people of Welsh ancestry perceiving themselves or being perceived as sharing a cultural heritage and shared ancestral origins. Over 300,000 Welsh people live in London, the same etymological origin is shared by the names of various other Celtic or Latin peoples such as the Walloons and the Vlachs, as well as of the Swiss canton of Valais. The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales and these words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning fellow-countrymen. They thus carry a sense of land of fellow-countrymen, our country, the word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century. It is attested in a poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh, until c.1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. During their time in Britain, the ancient Romans encountered tribes in present-day Wales that they called the Ordovices, the Demetae, the Silures and the Deceangli. The people of what is now Wales were not distinguished from the rest of the peoples of southern Britain, all were called Britons and spoke the common British language, a Brythonic Celtic tongue. Celtic language and culture seems to have arrived in Britain during the Iron Age, the claim has also been made that Indo-European languages may have been introduced to the British Isles as early as the early Neolithic, with Goidelic and Brythonic languages developing indigenously. The genetic evidence in this case would show that the change to Celtic languages in Britain may have occurred as a cultural rather than through migration as was previously supposed. The assumed genetic imprint of Neolithic incomers is seen as a cline, with stronger Neolithic representation in the east of Europe, when the Roman legions departed Britain around 400, a Romano-British culture remained in the areas the Romans had settled, and the pre-Roman cultures in others. According to Stephen Oppenheimer 96% of lineages in Llangefni in north Wales derive from Iberia, Genetic marker R1b averages from 83–89% amongst the Welsh. The people in what is now Wales continued to speak Brythonic languages with additions from Latin, the surviving poem Y Gododdin is in early Welsh and refers to the Brythonic kingdom of Gododdin with a capital at Din Eidyn and extending from the area of Stirling to the Tyne. John Davies places the change from Brythonic to Welsh between 400 and 700, offas Dyke was erected in the mid-8th century, forming a barrier between Wales and Mercia. The genetic tests suggested that between 50% and 100% of the population of what was to become England was wiped out. In 2001, research for a BBC programme on the Vikings suggested a strong link between the Celts and Basques, dating back tens of thousands of years. The UCL research suggested a migration on a huge scale during the Anglo-Saxon period and it appears England is made up of an ethnic cleansing event from people coming across from the continent after the Romans left, said Dr Mark Thomas, of the Centre for Genetic Anthropology at UCL
17.
Social justice
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Social justice is the fair and just relation between the individual and society. This is measured by the explicit and tacit terms for the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity, in the current global grassroots movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets and economic justice. Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, while the concept of social justice can be traced through the theology of Augustine of Hippo and the philosophy of Thomas Paine, the term social justice became used explicitly from the 1840s. A Jesuit priest named Luigi Taparelli is typically credited with coining the term, in the late industrial revolution, progressive American legal scholars began to use the term more, particularly Louis Brandeis and Roscoe Pound. In the later 20th century, social justice was made central to the philosophy of the social contract, in 1993, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action treats social justice as a purpose of the human rights education. The different concepts of justice, as discussed in ancient Western philosophy, were centered upon the community. Plato wrote in The Republic that it would be a state that every member of the community must be assigned to the class for which he finds himself best fitted. In an article for J. N. V University, author D. R, bhandari says, Justice is, for Plato, at once a part of human virtue and the bond, which joins man together in society. It is the quality that makes good and social. Justice is an order and duty of the parts of the soul, Plato says that justice is not mere strength, but it is a harmonious strength. Justice is not the right of the stronger but the harmony of the whole. All moral conceptions revolve about the good of the whole-individual as well as social, reflecting this time when slavery and subjugation of women was typical, ancient views of justice tended to reflect the rigid class systems that still prevailed. On the other hand, for the groups, strong concepts of fairness. Distributive justice was said by Aristotle to require that people were distributed goods, socrates is attributed with developing the idea of a social contract, whereby people ought to follow the rules of a society, and accept its burdens because they have accepted its benefits. After the Renaissance and Reformation, the concept of social justice, as developing human potential. The chief good is that he should arrive, together with other individuals if possible, all that extent of capacity which never fails to appear in revolutions. This is the highest abstract standard of social and distributive justice, towards which all institutions, and the efforts of all virtuous citizens, should be made in the utmost degree to converge. In the later 19th and early 20th century, social justice became an important theme in American political and legal philosophy, particularly in the work of John Dewey, Roscoe Pound, from this point, the discussion of social justice entered into mainstream legal and academic discourse
18.
Democratic socialism
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Some tendencies of democratic socialism advocate for revolution in order to transition to socialism, distinguishing it from some forms of social democracy. For Hain, this divide is more important than the revolutionary/reformist divide. A similar, but more complex, argument is made by Nicos Poulantzas, Draper himself uses the term revolutionary-democratic socialism as a type of socialism from below in his The Two Souls of Socialism. Similarly, about Eugene Debs, he writes, Debsian socialism evoked a response from the heart of the people. In contrast, other tendencies of democratic socialism advocate for eventual socialism that follow a gradual, reformist or evolutionary path to socialism, rather than a revolutionary one. We are socialists because we are developing a strategy for achieving that vision. The term is used to refer to policies that are compatible with and exist within capitalism. Though this is not always the case, for example, Robert M. contended that a more benevolent form of capitalism had emerged since the. According to Crosland, it was now possible to achieve equality in society without the need for fundamental economic transformation. Some proponents of market socialism see it as a system compatible with the political ideology of democratic socialism. The term democratic socialism can be used even another way, to refer to a version of the Soviet model that was reformed in a democratic way, for example, Mikhail Gorbachev described perestroika as building a new, humane and democratic socialism. Consequently, some former Communist parties have rebranded themselves as democratic socialist, justification of democratic socialism can be found in the works of social philosophers like Charles Taylor and Axel Honneth, among others. Honneth has put forward the view that political and economic ideologies have a social basis, contra liberal individualism, Honneth has emphasised the inter-subjective dependence between humans, that is, our well-being depends on recognising others and being recognised by them. Democratic socialism, with its emphasis on social collectivism, could be seen as a way of safeguarding this dependency and their concern for both democracy and social justice marks them out as key precursors of democratic socialism. Owens followers again stressed both participatory democracy and economic socialisation, in the form of consumer co-operatives, credit unions, the Chartists similarly combined a working class politics with a call for greater democracy. The British moral philosopher John Stuart Mill also came to advocate a form of socialism within a liberal context. Democratic socialism became a prominent movement at the end of the 19th century, in Germany, the Eisenacher socialist group merged with the Lassallean socialist group, in 1875, to form the German Social Democratic Party. In Australia, the Labour and Socialist movements were gaining traction, the ALP has been the main driving force for workers rights in Australia, backed by Australian Trade Unions, in particular the Australian Workers Union
19.
South Wales
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South Wales is the region of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the southwest of the United Kingdom, the Brecon Beacons national park covers about a third of South Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest mountain south of Snowdonia. Areas to the north of the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains are generally considered part of Mid Wales, the expression south Wales is not officially defined, and its meaning has changed over time. Between the Statute of Rhuddlan of 1284 and the Laws in Wales Act 1535 and this was divided into a Principality of South Wales and a Principality of North Wales. The southern principality was made up of the counties of Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, the legal responsibility for this area lay in the hands of the Justiciar of South Wales based at Carmarthen. Other parts of southern Wales were in the hands of various Marcher Lords, the Laws in Wales Acts 1542 created the Court of Great Sessions in Wales based on four legal circuits. The Brecon circuit served the counties of Brecknockshire, Radnorshire and Glamorgan while the Carmarthen circuit served Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, Monmouthshire was attached to the Oxford circuit for judicial purposes. These seven southern counties were thus differentiated from the six counties of north Wales, the Court of the Great Sessions came to an end in 1830, but the counties survived until the Local Government Act 1972 which came into operation in 1974. The creation of the county of Powys merged one northern county with two southern ones, there are thus different concepts of south Wales. Glamorgan and Monmouthshire are generally accepted by all as being in south Wales, but the status of Breconshire or Carmarthenshire, for instance, is more debatable. In the western extent, from Swansea westwards, local people might feel that they live in both south Wales and west Wales, areas to the north of the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains are generally considered to be in Mid Wales. A further point of uncertainty is whether the first element of the name should be capitalized, as the name is a geographical expression rather than a specific area with well-defined borders, style guides such as those of the BBC and The Guardian use the form south Wales. The most densely populated region in the southwest of the United Kingdom, the Brecon Beacons national park covers about a third of South Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest mountain south of Snowdonia. This natural beauty changed to an extent during the early Industrial Revolution when the Glamorgan and Monmouthshire valley areas were exploited for coal. By the 1830s, hundreds of tons of coal were being transported by barge to ports in Cardiff, lord Bute then charged fees per ton of coal that was transported out using his railways. Whilst some of the left, many settled and established in the South Wales Valleys between Swansea and Abergavenny as English-speaking communities with a unique identity. Industrial workers were housed in cottages and terraced houses close to the mines and foundries in which they worked. The large influx over the years caused overcrowding which led to outbreaks of Cholera, and on the social and cultural side and this number is now very low, following the UK miners strike, and the last traditional deep-shaft mine, Tower Colliery, closed in January 2008
20.
Left-wing politics
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Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy and social inequality. The term left wing can also refer to the radical, reforming, use of the term Left became more prominent after the restoration of the French monarchy in 1815 when it was applied to the Independents. The word wing was appended to Left and Right in the late 19th century, usually with disparaging intent, throughout the 19th century in France, the main line dividing left and right was between supporters of the French Republic and those of the Monarchy. The June Days Uprising during the Second Republic was an attempt by the Left to assert itself after the 1848 Revolution, in the mid-19th century, nationalism, socialism, democracy, and anti-clericalism became features of the French Left. After Napoleon IIIs 1851 coup and the subsequent establishment of the Second Empire, Marxism began to rival radical republicanism, the influential Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, published in 1848, asserted that all human history is the history of class struggle. They predicted that a revolution would eventually overthrow bourgeois capitalism and create a classless, stateless. It was in period that the word wing was appended to both Left and Right. Following a split between supporters of Marx and Mikhail Bakunin, anarchists formed the International Workers Association, the Second International became divided over the issue of World War I. Those who opposed the war, such as Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, in the United States after Reconstruction, the phrase the Left was used to describe those who supported trade unions, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. More recently in the United States, left-wing and right-wing have often used as synonyms for Democratic and Republican. Since the Right was populist, both in the Western and the Eastern Bloc, anything viewed as art was called leftist in all Europe. The following positions are typically associated with left-wing politics, during the industrial revolution, leftists supported trade unions. At the beginning of the 20th century, many leftists advocated strong government intervention in the economy, leftists continue to criticize what they perceive as the exploitative nature of globalization, the race to the bottom, and unjust lay-offs. Other leftists believe in Marxian economics, which are based on the theories of Karl Marx. Marxian economics does not exclusively rely upon Marx, it draws from a range of Marxist and non-Marxist sources, the political relevance of farmers has divided the left. In Das Kapital, Marx scarcely mentioned the subject, Mao Zedong believed that it would be rural peasants, not urban workers, who would bring about the proletarian revolution. Both Karl Marx and the early socialist William Morris arguably had a concern for environmental matters, according to Marx, Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together. Are not owners of the earth and they are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations
21.
National Health Service
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The National Health Service is the name of the public health services of England, Scotland and Wales, and is commonly used to refer to those of Northern Ireland. They were established together as one of the social reforms following the Second World War on the founding principles of being comprehensive, universal. Today, each provides a range of health services, the vast majority of which are free for people ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom. Taken together, the four National Health Services in 2015-16 employed around 1.6 million people with a budget of £136.7 billion. For non-residents, the NHS is free at the time of use, for general practitioner, the NHS began on the Appointed Day of 5 July 1948. This put into practice Westminster legislation for England and Wales from 1946 and Scotland from 1947, when Clement Attlees Labour Party won the 1945 election he appointed Aneurin Bevan as Health Minister. Bevan then embarked upon what the historian of the NHS, Charles Webster. Three years after the founding of the NHS, Bevan resigned from the Labour government in opposition to the introduction of charges for the provision of dentures and glasses, the following year, Winston Churchills Conservative government introduced prescription charges. These charges were the first of many controversies over reforms to the NHS throughout its history, each of the UKs four nations have their own separate NHS, each with its own history. From its earliest days, the history of the NHS has shown its place in British society reflected and debated in film, TV, cartoons. However, some functions might be performed by one health service on behalf of another. There have been issues about cross-border payments, taken together, the four National Health Services in 2015-16 employed around 1.6 million people with a combined budget of £136.7 billion. In 2014 the total health sector workforce across the UK was 2,165,043 and this broke down into 1,789,586 in England,198,368 in Scotland,110,292 in Wales and 66,797 in Northern Ireland. The NHS is free at the time of use, for general practitioner and emergency treatment not including admission to hospital, people with the right to medical care in European Economic Area nations are also entitled to free treatment by using the European Health Insurance Card. Those from other countries with which the UK has reciprocal arrangements also qualify for free treatment, people not ordinarily resident in the UK are in general not entitled to free hospital treatment, with some exceptions such as refugees. People not ordinarily resident may be subject to an interview to establish their eligibility, patients who do not qualify for free treatment are asked to pay in advance, or to sign a written undertaking to pay, except for emergency treatment. The provision of treatment to non-UK-residents, formerly interpreted liberally, has been increasingly restricted. As of 2016 the surcharge was £200 per year, with exemptions and reductions in some cases, the systems are 98. 8% funded from general taxation and National Insurance contributions, plus small amounts from patient charges for some services
22.
National Insurance Fund
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The three British National Insurance Funds hold the contributions of the National Insurance Scheme, set up by the Government of the United Kingdom in 1911. It was reformed in 1948 and assumed broadly its current form in 1975, in the Beveridge Report this was the basis of a universal insurance system for all British people. First and foremost a plan of insurance - of giving in return for contributions benefits up to levels, as of right and without means test. There is the National Insurance Fund of the United Kingdom, for Great Britain, the National Insurance Fund of Northern Ireland, the money is held in the National Insurance Fund, separate from the Consolidated Fund. Contributions are not taxes because they are not directly available for general expenditure by the government, the income of the NIF consist of contributions from employees, employers and the self-employed, plus interest on its investments. The NIF are used to pay for social security benefits such as state retirement pensions, National Insurance contributions also provide a small part of the funding for the public healthcare systems in the UK, but contributions are paid into the funds net of money allocated to the NHS. Thus the NIF do not hold money directed for the provision of health services in the United Kingdom. The Government determines the allocation for health each year and the allocation from each class contribution is calculated by the Government actuary. Each year there is a surplus of the order of £2 billion and this surplus figure has been revised in recent years due to errors in assumptions by the GAD and now is forecast to be just £30 billion by 2016. Http, //www. gad. gov. uk/Documents/Social%20Security/GAD_Report_2012.3 billion in the 2007/08 year, the balance in the National Insurance Funds at the end of each calendar month can be seen at the following government website, http, //www. dmo. gov. uk/index. aspx. Pension Frozen pension 2005 Report on the Fund by the National Audit Office
23.
100 Welsh Heroes
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100 Welsh Heroes was an opinion poll run in Wales as a response to the BBCs 100 Greatest Britons poll of 2002. It was carried out mainly on the internet, starting on 8 September 2003, the results were announced on 1 March 2004 and subsequently published in a book. The poll was operated by Culturenet Cymru, a Welsh Assembly-funded body based at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, at the time of the results being announced the organisers claimed that the 81,323 nominations and votes made it the largest online poll ever conducted in Wales. Nine of the list are female, of whom Catherine Zeta-Jones was the most popular, the Top 100 were,100 Great Welsh Women 100 Welsh Heroes BBC Article
24.
Welfare state
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The welfare state is a concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the social and economic well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, the general term may cover a variety of forms of economic and social organization. Marshall described the modern state as a distinctive combination of democracy, welfare. Esping-Andersen classified the most developed welfare state systems into three categories, Social Democratic, Conservative, and Liberal, the welfare state involves a transfer of funds from the state, to the services provided, as well as directly to individuals. It is funded through redistributionist taxation and is referred to as a type of mixed economy. Such taxation usually includes an income tax for people with higher incomes. Proponents argue that this helps reduce the gap between the rich and poor. The German term Sozialstaat has been used since 1870 to describe state support programs devised by German Sozialpolitiker, the literal English equivalent social state didnt catch on in Anglophone countries. However, during the Second World War, Anglican Archbishop William Temple, author of the book Christianity and the Social Order, popularized the concept using the phrase welfare state. Bishop Temples use of state has been connected to Benjamin Disraelis 1845 novel Sybil, or the Two Nations, which speaks of the only duty of power. In Germany, the term Wohlfahrtsstaat, a translation of the English welfare state, is used to describe Swedens social insurance arrangements. The Italian term stato sociale reproduces the original German term, spanish and many other languages employ an analogous term, estado del bienestar – literally, state of well-being. In Brazil, the concept is referred to as previdência social, in French, welfare state is translated into LÉtat-providence. Modern welfare programs are distinguished from earlier forms of poverty relief by their universal. The institution of social insurance in Germany under Bismarck was an influential template, some schemes were based largely in the development of autonomous, mutualist provision of benefits. Others were founded on state provision, in an influential essay, Citizenship and Social Class, British sociologist T. H. Examples of such states are Germany, all of the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, France, Uruguay and New Zealand, since that time, the term welfare state applies only to states where social rights are accompanied by civil and political rights. Changed attitudes in reaction to the worldwide Great Depression, which brought unemployment, during the Great Depression, the welfare state was seen as a middle way between the extremes of communism on the left and unregulated laissez-faire capitalism on the right
25.
Monmouthshire (historic)
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Monmouthshire, also known as the County of Monmouth, is one of thirteen historic counties of Wales and a former administrative county. It corresponds approximately to the present principal areas of Monmouthshire, Blaenau Gwent, Newport and Torfaen, the eastern part of the county is mainly agricultural, while the western valleys had rich mineral resources. This led to the area becoming highly industrialised coal mining. The county or shire of Monmouth was formed parts of the Welsh Marches by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. The historic boundaries are the River Wye on the east, dividing it from Gloucestershire, the boundaries with Herefordshire to the northeast and Brecknockshire to the north were less well-defined. The parish of Welsh Bicknor, was an exclave of Monmouthshire, Usk continued as an unreformed borough until its final abolition in 1886. New forms of government were established in the urban areas of the county with the setting of local boards under the Public Health Act 1848. The Public Health Act 1875 divided the areas into rural sanitary districts. An administrative county of Monmouthshire, governed by a county council, was formed in 1889 under the terms of the Local Government Act 1888. The administrative county had similar boundaries, but included the Beaufort, Dukestown, Llechryd, the county council was based in Newport, rather than the historic county town of Monmouth. In the same year the parish of Fwthog was transferred to both the administrative and geographic county of Monmouthshire, under the Local Government Act 1894, the administrative county was divided into urban and rural districts, based on existing sanitary districts. In 1899 Abergavenny was incorporated as a borough, two further urban districts were formed, Mynyddislwyn in 1903, and Bedwas and Machen in 1912. The County of Monmouth Review Order 1935 revised the number and boundaries of the urban, the last major boundary change to affect the administrative county was in 1938 when the Monmouthshire parish of Rumney was incorporated into the city and county borough of Cardiff. However, maps continued to show the Monmouthshire/Glamorgan and England/Wales border as the Rhymney River, the administrative county of Monmouth and county borough of Newport were abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. The successor authority, with boundary changes, was titled Gwent. Some border parishes became part of the new Rhymney Valley district of Mid Glamorgan, successor districts of Gwent were Blaenau Gwent, Islwyn, Monmouth, Newport and Torfaen. Monmouthshires status was somewhat ambiguous between the 16th and 20th centuries, with it considered by some as part of England, between about the 5th and 10th centuries the Welsh Kingdom of Gwent covered a variable area roughly contiguous with Monmouthshire. It then became part of Morgannwg, and shortly before the Norman conquest had become part of the unified Welsh realm of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn
26.
South Wales Valleys
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The South Wales Valleys are a number of industrialised valleys in South Wales. Many of the valleys run roughly parallel to each other, the Rhondda Valleys and the Cynon Valley are located roughly in the centre. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the South Wales valleys were lightly inhabited, the industrialisation of the Valleys occurred in two phases. First, in the half of the 18th century, the iron industry was established on the northern edge of the Valleys. This made South Wales the most important part of British ironmaking until the middle of the 19th century, second, from 1850 to the outbreak of the First World War, the South Wales Coalfield was developed to supply steam coal and anthracite. The South Wales Valleys were Britains only mountainous coalfield, topography defined the shape of the mining communities, with a hand and fingers pattern of urban development. The population of the Valleys in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was disproportionately young and male, Merthyr Tydfil, at the northern end of the Taff valley became Waless largest town thanks to its growing ironworks at Dowlais and Cyfarthfa Ironworks. The South Wales coalfield attracted huge numbers of people from areas to the valleys. This meant that many rows of terraced housing were built along the sides to accommodate the influx. The coal mined in the valleys was transported south along railways and canals to ports on the Bristol Channel, notably Cardiff, Newport, Cardiff was soon among the most important coal ports in the world and Swansea among the most important steel ports. There was a sense of salvation when the government announced the nationalisation of British coalmines in 1947, the decline in the mining of coal after World War II was a country wide issue, but South Wales and Rhondda were affected to a higher degree than other areas of Britain. Oil had superseded coal as the fuel of choice in many industries, of the few industries that were still reliant on coal, the demand was for quality coals, especially coking coal which was required by the steel industry. These two markets now controlled the fate of the mines in South Wales, and as demand fell from both sectors the knock-on effect on the industry was further contraction. The other major factors in the decline of coal were related to the massive under-investment in South Wales mines over the past decades. Most of the mines in the valleys were sunk between the 1850s and 1880s, which, as a consequence, meant they were far smaller than most modern mines. The Welsh mines were in comparison antiquated, with methods of ventilation, coal-preparation, in 1945 the British coal industry cut 72 per cent of their output mechanically, whereas in South Wales the figure was just 22 per cent. From 15,000 miners in 1947, Rhondda had just a pit within the valleys producing coal in 1984. In 1966, the village of Aberfan in the Taff valley suffered one of the worst disasters in Welsh history
27.
South Wales Coalfield
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The South Wales Coalfield is a large region of south Wales that is rich in coal deposits, especially the South Wales Valleys. It supported a large part, but not all, of the industry in Wales. The South Wales Coalfield extends across parts of Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent, see also the Geology of South Wales. The coal generally increases in grade or rank from east to west, with bituminous coals in the east, the Rhondda Valley was particularly known for steam coals which fuelled steamships of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Communications along the floors provided the main routeways for exporting coal south to ports and docks such as Newport Docks, Cardiff Docks. Early activity was mainly by levels or adits driven into coal seams from outcrops in the valley sides, development of the coalfield proceeded very actively from about 1850, when deep mining became significant in the previously entirely rural Rhondda Valley. Later colliery shafts were sunk as deep as 800 yards in order to reach the thicker, better quality seams, iron ore was also extracted from the coal measures, principally from the north crop area. This trend, which was extended to railway locomotives, was a factor in the economic hardship which struck the coalfield after the First World War. Coal workings were over-expanded in the nineteenth century, but the Welsh coal owners had failed to invest in mechanisation. By the inter-war period the South Wales Coalfield had the lowest productivity, highest costs, hardship continued through the 1926 general strike, the great depression of the 1930s, World War II and thereafter. The 1937 novel The Citadel and the 1939 novel How Green Was My Valley describe such hardship, as do the poems of Idris Davies the miner, teacher and poet of Rhymney. New collieries, particularly in the part of the coalfield where anthracite is found, were developed into the 1960s by the National Coal Board. Following the general collapse of the UK coal industry, most pits closed during the 1980s, with such as exhaustion of reserves. The last deep mine, at Tower Colliery on the north crop, however, a few small licensed mines continue to work seams, mostly from outcrop, on the hillsides. Although some areas of the coalfield are effectively worked out, considerable reserves remain, however, the geological difficulties, which resulted in the closure of Nantgarw colliery, make the cost of significant further extraction high. The coalfield experienced a development when opencast mining was commenced on a large scale. In addition, old tips were reclaimed for their small coal content, most of the old sites have been filled and landscaped, but new operations continue. Landslipping of the valley slopes, and subsidence caused by the coal extraction, have also posed problems
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Nonconformist
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In English church history, a nonconformist was a Protestant Christian who did not conform to the governance and usages of the established Church of England. Broad use of the term was precipitated after the Restoration of the British monarchy in 1660, by the late 19th-century the term specifically included the Reformed Christians, plus the Baptists and Methodists. The English Dissenters such as the Puritans who violated the Act of Uniformity 1559 — typically by practising radical, sometimes separatist, in England and Wales in the late 19th century the new terms free churchman and Free Church started to replace dissenter or Nonconformist. One influential nonconformist minister is Matthew Henry, who beginning in 1710 published his multi-volume Commentary that is still used, issac Watts is an equally recognized nonconformist minister whose hymns are still sung by Christians worldwide. The Act of Uniformity of 1662 required churchmen to use all rites and ceremonies as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. Consequently, nearly 2,000 clergymen were ejected from the church for refusing to comply with the provisions of the act. The Great Ejection created an abiding public consciousness of non-conformity, thereafter, a Nonconformist was any English subject belonging to a non-Anglican church or a non-Christian religion. More broadly, any person who advocated religious liberty was typically called out as Nonconformist, culturally, in England and Wales, discrimination against Nonconformists endured even longer. Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Calvinists, other reformed groups, following the act, other groups, including Methodists, Unitarians, Quakers, Plymouth Brethren, and the English Moravians were officially labelled as Nonconformists as they became established. A religious census in 1851 revealed Nonconformist comprised about half that of the people who attended services on Sundays. In the larger manufacturing areas, Nonconformists clearly outnumbered members of the Church of England, in Wales in 1850, Nonconformist chapel attendance significantly outnumbered Anglican church attendance. Historians distinguish two categories of Dissenters, or Nonconformists, in addition to the evangelicals or Low Church element in the Church of England, Old Dissenters, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, included Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Unitarians, and Presbyterians outside Scotland. New Dissenters emerged in the 18th century and were mainly Methodists, the Nonconformist Conscience was their moral sensibility which they tried to implement in British politics. The Nonconformist conscience of the Old group emphasized religious freedom and equality, pursuit of justice, and opposition to discrimination, compulsion, the New Dissenters stressed personal morality issues, including sexuality, temperance, family values, and Sabbath-keeping. Both factions were active, but until mid-19th century the Old group supported mostly Whigs and Liberals in politics. In the late 19th the New Dissenters mostly switched to the Liberal Party, the result was a merging of the two groups, strengthening their great weight as a political pressure group. The joined together on new issues especially regarding schools and temperance, by 1914 the linkage was weakening and by the 1920s it was virtually dead. Dissenters demanded removal of political and civil disabilities that applied to them, the Anglican establishment strongly resisted until 1828
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Baptists
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Other tenets of Baptist churches include soul competency, salvation through faith alone, Scripture alone as the rule of faith and practice, and the autonomy of the local congregation. Baptists recognize two ministerial offices, elders and deacons, Baptist churches are widely considered to be Protestant churches, though some Baptists disavow this identity. Historians trace the earliest church labeled Baptist back to 1609 in Amsterdam, in accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults. Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christs atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect. Thomas Helwys formulated a distinctively Baptist request that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, Helwys died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of English dissenters under King James I. In 1638, Roger Williams established the first Baptist congregation in the North American colonies, in the mid-18th century, the First Great Awakening contributed to Baptist growth in both New England and the South. Baptist missionaries have spread their church to every continent, the largest Baptist denomination is the Southern Baptist Convention, with the membership of associated churches totaling more than 15 million. Modern Baptist churches trace their history to the English Separatist movement in the century after the rise of the original Protestant denominations and this view of Baptist origins has the most historical support and is the most widely accepted. Adherents to this position consider the influence of Anabaptists upon early Baptists to be minimal and it was a time of considerable political and religious turmoil. Both individuals and churches were willing to give up their theological roots if they became convinced that a more biblical truth had been discovered, during the Protestant Reformation, the Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church. There were some Christians who were not content with the achievements of the mainstream Protestant Reformation, there also were Christians who were disappointed that the Church of England had not made corrections of what some considered to be errors and abuses. Of those most critical of the Churchs direction, some chose to stay and they became known as Puritans and are described by Gourley as cousins of the English Separatists. Others decided they must leave the Church because of their dissatisfaction, historians trace the earliest Baptist church back to 1609 in Amsterdam, with John Smyth as its pastor. Three years earlier, while a Fellow of Christs College, Cambridge, reared in the Church of England, he became Puritan, English Separatist, and then a Baptist Separatist, and ended his days working with the Mennonites. He began meeting in England with 60–70 English Separatists, in the face of great danger, Smyth and his lay supporter, Thomas Helwys, together with those they led, broke with the other English exiles because Smyth and Helwys were convinced they should be baptized as believers. In 1609 Smyth first baptized himself and then baptized the others, in 1609, while still there, Smyth wrote a tract titled The Character of the Beast, or The False Constitution of the Church. In it he expressed two propositions, first, infants are not to be baptized, and second, Antichristians converted are to be admitted into the true Church by baptism. Hence, his conviction was that a church should consist only of regenerate believers who have been baptized on a personal confession of faith
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Methodism
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Methodism, or the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity which derive their inspiration from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and Johns brother Charles Wesley were also significant leaders in the movement and it originated as a revival within the 18th century Church of England and became a separate Church after Wesleys death. Because of vigorous missionary work, the movement spread throughout the British Empire, Wesleys theology focused on sanctification and the effect of faith on the character of a Christian. Distinguishing Methodist doctrines include an assurance of salvation, imparted righteousness, the possibility of perfection in love, the works of piety and the primacy of Scripture. Most Methodists teach that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for all of humanity and that salvation is available for all, in theology and this teaching rejects the Calvinist position that God has pre-ordained the salvation of a select group of people. However, Whitefield and several others were considered Calvinistic Methodists and held to the latter position, Methodism emphasises charity and support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the works of mercy. These ideals are put into practice by the establishment of hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens and schools to follow Christs command to spread the gospel, the movement has a wide variety of forms of worship, ranging from high church to low church in liturgical usage. Denominations that descend from the British Methodist tradition are generally less ritualistic, Methodism is known for its rich musical tradition and Charles Wesley was instrumental in writing much of the hymnody of the Methodist Church. In Britain, the Methodist Church had an effect in the early decades of the making of the working class. In the United States, it became the religion of many slaves who later formed black churches in the Methodist tradition. The Methodist revival began with a group of men, including John Wesley and his younger brother Charles, the Wesley brothers founded the Holy Club at the University of Oxford, where John was a fellow and later a lecturer at Lincoln College. The club met weekly and they set about living a holy life. They were accustomed to receiving Communion every week, fasting regularly, abstaining from most forms of amusement and luxury and frequently visited the sick, the fellowship were branded as Methodist by their fellow students because of the way they used rule and method to go about their religious affairs. John, who was leader of the club, took the attempted mockery, unsuccessful in their work, the brothers returned to England conscious of their lack of genuine Christian faith. They looked for help to Peter Boehler and other members of the Moravian Church, at a Moravian service in Aldersgate on 24 May 1738, John experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion, when he felt his heart strangely warmed. Charles had reported an experience an few days previously. Considered a pivotal moment, Daniel L. John Wesley came under the influence of the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius, Arminius had rejected the Calvinist teaching that God had pre-ordained an elect number of people to eternal bliss while others perished eternally. Conversely, George Whitefield, Howell Harris, and Selina Hastings, George Whitefield, returning from his own mission in Georgia, joined the Wesley brothers in what was rapidly to become a national crusade
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Colliery
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Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its content, and, since the 1880s, has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore, in the United Kingdom and South Africa a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine a pit, the above-ground structures the pit head. In Australia, colliery generally refers to a coal mine. In the United States colliery has been used to describe a coal mine operation, Coal mining has had many developments over the recent years, from the early days of men tunnelling, digging and manually extracting the coal on carts, to large open cut and long wall mines. Mining at this scale requires the use of draglines, trucks, conveyors, hydraulic jacks, small-scale mining of surface deposits dates back thousands of years. For example, in Roman Britain, the Romans were exploiting most of the major coalfields by the late 2nd century AD. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the 18th century and later spread to continental Europe, international trade expanded rapidly when coal-fed steam engines were built for the railways and steamships. Until the late nineteenth century coal was mined using a pick and shovel. Coal-cutting machines were introduced in the 1880s, by 1912, surface mining was conducted with steam shovels designed for coal mining. The most economical method of extraction from coal seams depends on the depth and quality of the seams. Coal mining processes are differentiated by whether they operate on the surface or underground, many coals extracted from both surface and underground mines require washing in a coal preparation plant. Surface mining and deep underground mining are the two methods of mining. Coal that occurs at depths of 180 to 300 ft are usually deep mined, for example, some western U. S. coal that occur at depths in excess of 200 ft are mined by the open pit methods, due to thickness of the seam 60–90 feet. Coals occurring below 300 ft are usually deep mined, However, there are open pit mining operations working on coal seams up to 1000–1500 feet below ground level, for instance Tagebau Hambach in Germany. When coal seams are near the surface, it may be economical to extract the coal using open cut mining methods, open cast coal mining recovers a greater proportion of the coal deposit than underground methods, as more of the coal seams in the strata may be exploited. In this mining method, explosives are first used in order to break through the surface or overburden, the overburden is then removed by draglines or by shovel and truck. Once the coal seam is exposed, it is drilled, fractured, the coal is then loaded onto large trucks or conveyors for transport to either the coal preparation plant or directly to where it will be used
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Liberal Party (UK)
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The Liberal Party was a liberal political party which was one of the two major parties in the United Kingdom in the 19th and early 20th century. The party arose from an alliance of Whigs and free-trade Peelites and Radicals favourable to the ideals of the American, by the end of the nineteenth century, it had formed four governments under William Gladstone. Despite splitting over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to power in 1906 with a landslide victory, by the end of the 1920s, the Labour Party had replaced the Liberals as the Conservatives main rival. The party went into decline and by the 1950s won no more than six seats at general elections, apart from notable by-election victories, the partys fortunes did not improve significantly until it formed the SDP–Liberal Alliance with the newly formed Social Democratic Party in 1981. At the 1983 General Election, the Alliance won over a quarter of the vote, at the 1987 General Election, its vote fell below 23% and the Liberal and Social Democratic parties merged in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats. A splinter group reconstituted the Liberal Party in 1989 and it was formed by party members opposed to the merger who saw the Lib Dems diluting Liberal ideals. Prominent intellectuals associated with the Liberal Party include the philosopher John Stuart Mill, the economist John Maynard Keynes, the Liberal Party grew out of the Whigs, who had their origins in an aristocratic faction in the reign of Charles II, and the early 19th century Radicals. The Whigs were in favour of reducing the power of the Crown, although their motives in this were originally to gain more power for themselves, the more idealistic Whigs gradually came to support an expansion of democracy for its own sake. The great figures of reformist Whiggery were Charles James Fox and his disciple, after decades in opposition, the Whigs returned to power under Grey in 1830 and carried the First Reform Act in 1832. The Reform Act was the climax of Whiggism, but it brought about the Whigs demise. As early as 1839 Russell had adopted the name of Liberals, the leading Radicals were John Bright and Richard Cobden, who represented the manufacturing towns which had gained representation under the Reform Act. They favoured social reform, personal liberty, reducing the powers of the Crown and the Church of England, avoidance of war and foreign alliances, for a century, free trade remained the one cause which could unite all Liberals. This allowed ministries led by Russell, Palmerston, and the Peelite Lord Aberdeen to hold office for most of the 1850s and 1860s, a leading Peelite was William Ewart Gladstone, who was a reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer in most of these governments. The formal foundation of the Liberal Party is traditionally traced to 1859 and this was brought about by Palmerstons death in 1865 and Russells retirement in 1868. After a brief Conservative government Gladstone won a victory at the 1868 election. The establishment of the party as a membership organisation came with the foundation of the National Liberal Federation in 1877. John Stuart Mill was a Liberal MP from 1865 to 1868, for the next thirty years Gladstone and Liberalism were synonymous. William Ewart Gladstone served as prime minister four times, called the Grand Old Man later in life, Gladstone was always a dynamic popular orator who appealed strongly to the working class and to the lower middle class
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Robert Blatchford
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Robert Peel Glanville Blatchford was a socialist campaigner, journalist, and author in the United Kingdom. He was also noted as a prominent atheist, opponent of eugenics, in the early 1920s, after the death of his wife, he turned towards spiritualism. Robert Blatchford was born 17 March 1851 in Maidstone, England and he was the second son of John Glanville Blatchford, a strolling comedian, and his wife, Georgina Louisa Corri Blatchford, an actress. Blatchfords father died in 1853, leaving him in the care of his mother and she continued her acting career for nine years, and Blatchford spent much of his early life close to the stage. To help support the family, Blatchford and his brother Montagu would perform with their mother, doing comedic renditions, in 1862 the family moved to Halifax, where it was hoped that Blatchford and his brother could learn a trade. Blatchford was first employed as an odd job boy in a printing works. As a child he attended school only occasionally, firstly in Halifax, despite the brevity of his educational experience, it did provide him with enough insight to be able to label the education system as a cram method. Though lacking an education, Blatchford taught himself from the age of eight, reading the Bible, Pilgrims Progress. Throughout his childhood he was frail and sickly, and doctors suggested that he would not reach adulthood and this illness gave Blatchford time to read, something he would not have been able to pursue as thoroughly if employed. Around 1864 his mother secured full-time employment as a dressmaker and immediately apprenticed both her sons, sending Montagu to a printer and Blatchford to a brushmaker. At the brushmaker factory, Blatchford met Sarah Crossley, who he would marry in 1880, by 1871 Blatchford left Halifax, though his reason for doing so has been the cause of debate. On May Day 1871, Blatchford walked to Hull, then continued on to London via Yarmouth, after leaving Halifax, Blatchford joined the Army and rose to become a sergeant major by 1874. By the time of his promotion, he had achieved the Armys second class certificate of education. Blatchford served with the Irish regiment 103rd Dublin Fusiliers and the 96th Regiment of Foot, the pleasures of army life stimulated some of Blatchfords best writing, but in 1877 he left the army to become a clerk in the Weaver Navigation Company. While employed as a clerk, he used his spare time to learn grammar, syntax. In 1880 he married Sarah Crossley, whom he met in Halifax, at the Zion Chapel in Halifax, Sarah was the daughter of a domestic servant and a mechanic. Around this time Blatchford became frustrated with his job, and decided that he wished to become an artist, unfortunately, employment opportunities for artists in Norwich were scarce, so he instead decided to become a writer. Blatchford’s writing career began in 1882 at the Yorkshireman newspaper, where he had a sketch published and he obtained his first full-time writing job through his friend Alexander Muttock Thompson, who worked for the Manchester Sporting Chronicle
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Independent Labour Party
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The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893, in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, the organisations three parliamentary representatives defected to the Labour Party in 1947 and the organisation rejoined the Labour Party as Independent Labour Publications in 1975. As the 19th century came to a close, working-class representation in political office became a concern for many Britons. Many who sought the election of working men and their advocates to the Parliament of the United Kingdom saw the Liberal Party as the vehicle for achieving this aim. As early as 1869 a Labour Representation League had been established to register, many trade unions themselves became concerned with gaining parliamentary representation to advance their legislative aims. From the 1870s a series of working-class candidates financially supported by unions were accepted and supported by the Liberal Party. The federation of British unions, the Trades Union Congress, formed its own electoral committee in 1886 to further advance its electoral goals, within two years of its foundation in 1884 the gradualist Fabian Society officially committed itself to a policy of permeation of the Liberal Party. A number of so-called Lib-Lab candidates were subsequently elected Members of Parliament by this alliance of trade unions, the idea of working with the middle-class Liberal Party to achieve working-class representation in parliament was not universally accepted, however. The orthodox British Marxists established their own party, the Social Democratic Federation in 1881, working with SDF members such as Henry Hyde Champion and Tom Mann he was instrumental in the foundation of the Scottish Labour Party in 1888. In 1890 the United States imposed a tariff on foreign cloth which led to a cut in wages throughout the British textile industry. This initiative was replicated by others in Colne Valley, Slaithwaite, such developments showed that working-class support for separation from the Liberal Party was growing in strength. Further arguments for the formation of a new party were to be found in Robert Blatchfords newspaper The Clarion, founded in 1891, the latter collected some 3500 names of those in favour of creating a party of labour independent from the existing political organisations. Hardie owed nothing to the Liberal Party for his election, at a TUC meeting in September 1892 a call was issued for a meeting of advocates of independent labour organisation. An arrangements committee was established and a called for the following January. This conference was chaired by William Henry Drew and was held in Bradford 14–16 January 1893 and it proved to be the foundation conference of the Independent Labour Party and MP Keir Hardie was elected its first chairman. German Socialist leader Edward Bernstein was briefly permitted to address the gathering to pass along the best wishes for success from the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the conference also established the basic organisational structure of the new party. Annual Conferences, composed of delegates from each unit of the organisation, were declared the supreme. A Secretary was to be elected, to serve under the control of a central body known as the National Administrative Committee
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Trade union
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The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with employers. The most common purpose of these associations or unions is maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment and this may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies. Unions may organize a section of skilled workers, a cross-section of workers from various trades. The agreements negotiated by a union are binding on the rank and file members, originating in Great Britain, trade unions became popular in many countries during the Industrial Revolution. Trade unions may be composed of workers, professionals, past workers, students. Trade union density, or the percentage of workers belonging to a union, is highest in the Nordic countries. The trade unions aim at nothing less than to prevent the reduction of wages below the level that is maintained in the various branches of industry. That is to say, they wish to prevent the price of labour-power from falling below its value, yet historian R. A. the other the aggressive-expansionist drive to unite all labouring men and women for a different order of things. The 18th century economist Adam Smith noted the imbalance in the rights of workers in regards to owners. In The Wealth of Nations, Book I, chapter 8, Smith wrote, We rarely hear, it has said, of the combination of masters. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate When workers combine, masters. As Smith noted, unions were illegal for many years in most countries, there were severe penalties for attempting to organize unions, up to and including execution. This pool of unskilled and semi-skilled labour spontaneously organized in fits and starts throughout its beginnings, Trade unions and collective bargaining were outlawed from no later than the middle of the 14th century when the Ordinance of Labourers was enacted in the Kingdom of England. In 1799, the Combination Act was passed, which banned trade unions, although the unions were subject to often severe repression until 1824, they were already widespread in cities such as London. Sympathy for the plight of the workers brought repeal of the acts in 1824, by the 1810s, the first labour organizations to bring together workers of divergent occupations were formed. Possibly the first such union was the General Union of Trades, also known as the Philanthropic Society, the latter name was to hide the organizations real purpose in a time when trade unions were still illegal. The Association quickly enrolled approximately 150 unions, consisting mostly of textile related unions, but also including mechanics, blacksmiths, and various others
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William Morris
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William Morris was an English textile designer, poet, novelist, translator, and socialist activist. Associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement, he was a contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he played a significant role in propagating the early socialist movement in Britain. Born in Walthamstow, Essex, to a wealthy family, Morris came under the strong influence of medievalism while studying Classics at Oxford University. Webb and Morris designed a home, Red House, then in Kent. In 1861, Morris founded a decorative arts firm with Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Webb, and others, in 1875, Morris assumed total control of the company, which was renamed Morris & Co. Although retaining a main home in London, from 1871 Morris rented the rural retreat of Kelmscott Manor, greatly influenced by visits to Iceland, with Eiríkr Magnússon he produced a series of English-language translations of Icelandic Sagas. In 1877 he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to campaign against the damage caused by architectural restoration, in 1891 he founded the Kelmscott Press to publish limited-edition, illuminated-style print books, a cause to which he devoted his final years. Morris is recognised as one of the most significant cultural figures of Victorian Britain, though best known in his lifetime as a poet, founded in 1955, the William Morris Society is devoted to his legacy, while multiple biographies and studies of his work have seen publication. Many of the associated with his life are open to visitors, much of his work can be found in art galleries and museums. Morris was born at Elm House in Walthamstow, Essex, on 24 March 1834. Raised into a wealthy family, he was named after his father. His mother was Emma Morris, who came from Woodford Hall in Woodford, Essex and he also took rides through the Essex countryside on his pony, and visited the various churches and cathedrals throughout the country, marveling at their architecture. His father took him on visits outside of the county, for instance to Canterbury Cathedral, the Chiswick Horticultural Gardens, and to the Isle of Wight, where he adored Blackgang Chine. In February 1848 Morris began his studies at Marlborough College in Marlborough, Wiltshire and he despised his time there, being bullied, bored, and homesick. He did use the opportunity to many of the prehistoric sites of Wiltshire, such as Avebury and Silbury Hill. At Christmas 1851, Morris was removed from the school and returned to Water House, guy, Assistant Master at the nearby Forest School. In June 1852 Morris entered Oxford Universitys Exeter College, although since the college was full and he disliked the college and was bored by the manner in which they taught him Classics
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